Changing Seasons
by Piccolo's Love Slave
Summary: Piccolo and his adopted daughter Neko set off towards the planet Jalamir to bring Neko some closure after the death of her friend, Mira, however, while they are away Piccolo's woman Alaura is needing comfort when Gohan shows up and one thing leads to... (
1. Beside The Shore

She stood at the edge of the water, allowing the cold waves to lap at her bare toes and send small shivers of delight up her spin and through her viens. Wrapped in a dark shawl, her hair dark as midnight blowing out like a banner behind her, Neko gazed out across the ocean, in awe that such a wonderous place should even exsist.  
  
She had her tail wrapped around her muscular yet still feminine waist and she flicked it's end in time to the lapping water across her feet. She felt as if she could stand her gazing out at the water and the fading sun on the horizon, gorgeous hues of rainbow flame painting the water in shades of pink and red. Neko felt a lightness overcome her heart and she smiled out of soft lips and eyes.  
  
She felt the presence behind her as sutle as the breeze which played with the dark strands of her hair. She halfway turned to see her father there, flying silently towards her, his normally stark expression softened by the tranquality of their surroundings. It was very thoughtful of her mother to suggest this little vacation for them.  
  
"It's a beautiful sight, Father." She said, she had long ago stopped calling him 'Da' and he nodded at her, also gazing out over the water. "It feels like it's been so long since I've felt so peaceful."  
  
"You've had to grow up fast, Neko." Piccolo said, landing softly beside her and reaching out to take her hand in his own. As always, his nearnear and protection made her feel safe and warm. "After what happened on Jalamir."  
  
"Please," She said, squeezing her eyes shut tight, "I'd rather just forgot about that."  
  
"It's hard to lose a." Piccolo tried but his daughter released his hand and leapt into the sky, taking off across the water and ignoring his mental shouts for her to stop and return to the beach.  
  
So hard to lose a friend. He had been about to say, Neko knew. At sixteen years she still greived for the friend she'd found and then lost when she was only six. If only they had never allowed her to go back to her own world with her sister.If only Mira had stayed with them.then she would not now be rotting behind the soil of Jalamir, food to insects and worms. If only.  
  
Neko slashed an arm across her eyes, the shawl she wore flying out with her hair behind her. She felt the tears freezing on her cheeks and eye lashes and a hard stone in her throat that was difficult to swallow past fall down into her stomach. She knew that nothing much came of crying over the past and that she must remain strong for her family.but sometimes it was just too hard!  
  
Piccolo watched Neko fly, almost blindly, into the sun's fading show and wondered if he should go after her. He started to take off towards her, worry etched across his handsome face and narrowing his eyes, but he paused, realizing that she probably needed some time alone more than anything. He knew that she had never really gotten over the death of Princess Jalamira, her childhood friend, and that instead of dealing with those feelings of greif and anger she had bottled them up inside and focused instead on training as hard as she could. Piccolo did not understand if her vigor for perfection stemmed from a fear of losing someone else she loved or just to please him. He had had the feeling, for a long time after Mira's death, that Neko believed it was her doing she had fallen.  
  
Logically, he knew that was not possible. Mira had chosen her fate and met it head on, as she knew she must. Neko could not have stopped her from answering the challenge any more than he could scare the sun into not rising in the morning. He just did not now how to help her other than leaving her alone to figure things out inside herself on her own.  
  
He heard Neko's mother approach by her steady breathing and the scent she always seemed to hold; a mixture of vanilla and sage, and she looked up towards him and beckoned him down with a small curve of her full lips. She was dressed in a pale sundress and her fair skin seemed to glow in the disappearing light. She had brought her sunglasses out with her just in case it was still too bright outside for her sensitive blue eyes.  
  
He floated down next to her and wrapped his large hand about her smaller, more delicate one. She had a few gray streaks in her hair but she was still the most beautiful creature he had ever seen and continued to marvel at his life with her over the course of their years together. He knew, in his heart of hearts, that he would greatly outlive her and would even bury her on her deathday, but that future pain he did not wish to dwell on.  
  
"Neko's left." He said, speaking slowly and low, as if he did not wish to tell her, "She's flown off.troubled."  
  
Concern and fear crossed like shadows over his beloved's eyes. "She has been moody and restrained for a long time." She said, looking towards the sky and the tiny dark spot she knew was her daughter, "For years in fact. I had believed that this was just normal teenage angst, but it's gotten worse over the past few years."  
  
"Being half human and half saiyan," Piccolo said, "The bloods sometimes rest uneasily against each other and emotions run high.or very low."  
  
"I never thought." Alaura said, "I know she still misses that sweet girl."  
  
"Yes." He answered, "I think she fears it was her fault that she died. I believe that Neko thinks that if only she had been strong enough it would have saved her."  
  
"That's ridicious!" Alaura cried, angry that her child was suffering so within for something she had had no control of, "The only way she could have stopped Mira from going was to sit on her and hold her down and I can not see our daughter doing that, much less a royal of Jalamir allowing it!"  
  
"She needs to realize that it wasn't her doing." Piccolo said, "Everything she does suffers now. Has been suffering. I cannot continue with her until she come to grips with this."  
  
"But, Piccolo, You know Neko's been training so hard to compete in the tournament." Alaura said, shocked and hurt at the same time, as if she were her daughter at that moment, "You cannot stop instruct."  
  
Piccolo shook his head, cutting her off with a quick wave of his hand. "It's pointless, Alaura. She cannot concentrate like she used to and I do not wish to waste my time on a meaningless task."  
  
Alaura said nothing for a long time. Finally, when she did speak her voice was filled with emotion; "You must go to Jalamir, then, Love." She went on, "And let our daughter say goodbye to her friend properly.and hopefully, on the way, you can make her understand how wrong she is to believe as she does.as she has been believing."  
  
Piccolo watched as Alaura turned and walked stiffly back to the small cabin, her hair, which he had forbad her to ever cut since he loved the soft golden texture and the way it felt when he ran the strands through his fingers as they made love, fell in a long, lose braid down her back and her arms wrapped tightly about herself. She entered the house and let the screen door bang shut behind her, like a period on the end of a sentence.  
  
He looked upwards towards his returning daughter and knew that the start of a new one was about to begin. 


	2. Journey To Jalamir

"Do you really think this is nessary, Father?" Neko sat in the seat beside Piccolo, her black booted feet resting, crossed over at her ankles, upon the control panel of the small ship her mother had been able too get at the last minute from one of her more influential friends. Somethings, Neko thought as she played with a strand of her dark hair, having a rich parent was worthwhile. "I mean, according to the readout, Jalamir is pretty far."  
  
"We are doing this for your own good, Neko." Piccolo said, punching some buttons which would allow them to fly accordingly, estimated time of arrival in Jalamir's atmosphere was about seventeen days. "You need to be able to say good bye to her, for the last time."  
  
Neko slipped her feet down to the hard floor of the ship with a loud bang and crossed her arms under her small breasts, glaring out at the darkness and the pinpricks of stars around them, "I said goodbye to her the day I saw that bitch slice her head from her body and hold it up like some morbid trophy."  
  
"No, Neko." Piccolo glanced sidelong at this woman who was his daughter in all ways but blood, "You did not. You've only kept the image of her death and the pain of needing vengence within you for so long that you've lost sight of anything else."  
  
"That is so not true!" She raged, dark eyebrows coming down like stormclouds over even darker eyes, "I haven't lost sight of what's real, what's important!" She clenched her fists in her lap so hard the knuckled whitened, "Revenge is most important and I will have it!"  
  
Piccolo looked away, back out at the constantly moving stars and sighed, uncertain of how to reply to her last impassioned outburst. Finally, after a few long moments that seemed to strench between them like eons, he said; "Neko. This trip will do you good. I know it. It will do us both good." For we have been growing farther and farther apart as time goes by, He thought, sadly. He had hoped this trip would be a chance to change that, to become as close as they were when she'd been just a little girl.  
  
Now, as he watched his daughter rise, the crimson gi she had taken to wearing nearly all the time now, even while not training, stark like blood against the gray backdrop of the craft's interior, and head towards the back, muttering something about needing to sleep for awhile, he feared that this trip was going to take much longer than planned. Or at least feel like it.  
  
He turned back to the veiwscreen ahead of him, gazing out at the blackness without for half a moment before closing his eyes and beginning the deep breathing excercises nessessary to begin the initial stage of meditation. As practiced as he was at it, he slipped effortlessly into a deeper state of conscience like a diver slides beneath the surface of the water into the icy, darken depths below.  
  
Neko sat on the small bed, thankful that the gravity hadn't failed them yet. As much as she trusted her mother, she did not always trust those odd friends,( who were really more friends of her late grandparents and only agree to do favors for her mother out of some warped sense of duty to their lost friends), not to sell them used crap or defective equiptment. It wouldn't have been the first time. But she had gone over every nut and bolt herself and everything seemed in working order. She just hoped she hadn't missed anything. It would all they'd need to be stranded on some godforsaken planet while waiting for repairs.  
  
Neko was good at fixing things, she'd discovered this when she was thirteen and her mother's microwave had blown out. After taking it apart and reasembling it, she'd realized how much she had really enjoyed it and had spent whatever time she had outside of training taking things apart and putting them back together, often making them work even better than before. Her mother was always pleasantly surprised at the little 'gifts' her daughter left her around the house from time to time. It made Neko feel good inside to know she had a talent other than her fighting skill, something to fall back on if ever she needed it.  
  
She slipped off her shiny black boots and lay them next to each other beside the foot of the bunk. She liked sleeping on the bottom bunk and having the bottom of the top bunk overhead like a protective box cover. At least, she thought she did, the few times since they'd left Earth's atmosphere that she'd come back to her quarters to meditate and reflect for awhile. Now, though, as she lay on top of the starched white sheets, the one thin blue blanket folded down the end of the bed, the bottom of the bunk overhead felt like the lid of a coffin. 


	3. An Accidental Embrace

It had been nearly a week since Piccolo and her daughter had left her. She remembered kissing Piccolo almost passionatly in the doorway as Neko pretended not to notice and stood at no great distance, waiting impaitently, the silky dark tail she'd inheirted from her real sire swishing back and forth like an angry cat's, her arms crossed under her breasts in an unconscience gesture remincint of Piccolo's.  
  
She stood on the beach, having decided to stay in the beachfront cabin awhile longer and hopefully allow the warm sand and pulsating ocean waves soothe her troubled heart and mind. She flipped her golden ponytail over her narrow shoulder and stood straight, looking out across the waves, her eyes lifting of their own accord to the half moon swelling just above the surface of the silvery dark waters on the horizon.  
  
She thought of her loved ones, her family, and wondered how they fared. She knew that Piccolo would not allow any harm to come to Neko, but she was worried non the less. She was worried about him as well as their girl, who seemed to think she was old enough, at sixteen, to take care of herself.  
  
"It's nice here, isn't it?" She gasped at the voice, not expecting company, not, at least, this far from any type of civalization. This beach had been her parents', their secret getaway place before they'd perished and as far as she knew, only a select few even knew of it's exsistance. She turned, her eyes expressing the surprise she felt and smiled warmly at the man before her.  
  
Gohan had found the island easily enough, it was just a matter of pinpointing Piccolo's faint residual energy and following it. He knew that his old friend was not going to be there since he'd seen him and Neko off last week. He thought that he should pay Alaura a visit and see how she was getting along all by herself.  
  
He needn't even have bothered had Tae, the chasimatic and talented namek they had taken in several years ago, been back from one of his ballet troupe's tours. From what he understood, they were preforming Cinderella across the globe and it was already a huge success. The critics raved about Tae's ability to 'step completely into character'. He danced the part of the Prince with a dark-skinned beauty as his 'Lady of the Ashes'.  
  
He shook thoughts of the namek ballet dancer from his mind as he approached Alaura, unheard by her, so it seemed. She looks so tired, He found himself thinking, as he studied her profile for a moment. The moon's wan light causing her flesh to glow like ivory and the silver streaks amid her long hair to shine like metal. She wore a silvery-dark chemise and a flimsy outer gown of matching hue which blew back on both sides of her in the cool early evening breeze.  
  
She looks.beautiful. He shook his head savagly. Where had that thought come from? He scolded himself. She was Piccolo's woman. He no right even harboring such thoughts about her. Angry at himself he nearly flew off right then and there without even telling her why he'd come in the first place.  
  
"Yes," She answered his initial query, stepping into easy comfort with the man she'd known for several years now, "Very. There's always been something about the sounds of the ocean's roar, as if it were speaking to me, that's always been so relaxing for me. I remember when my grandparents would keep me during the summers when school was out and my parents did not want me underfoot and we'd spend the days at the beach. I would walk along the shore or build sandcastles or collect shells.  
  
Sometimes, if no one was watching, I would dance with the waves as they tickled my toes, pretending an elusive gentleman was my graceful partner. Perhaps it was which the sea itself that I danced." She blushed slightly, suddenly aware of how much she had been talking, She laughed nervously, uncertain why she was nervous in the first place, "Listen to me, jabbering on like this. You probably think I'm a nut."  
  
"No, I don't." He said, placing his arm about her shoulders and drawing her closer. Standing beside her, he noticed, her head only reached his shoulder and she sighed and placed it there as if she'd always done so, "I don't think that at all about you, Alaura. In fact, I think your."  
  
He stopped himself mid-sentence and silently berated himself for his carelessness. He's been about to say that he thought she was beautiful, not nuts. Maybe I'm the one who's nuts! He thought, I should go. If Videl ever found out that I was alone on a romantic beach with a beautiful older woman she'd flip out! I'd be lucky to escape with my balls still attached! But, somehow, right then, none of that seemed to matter. Something inside Gohan sensed that this woman needed to be comforted and he could not rightfully deny her what she seemed to need.  
  
He recalled the time he'd gone with her into her bedroom, years ago, at the request of both her and Piccolo, to aide in the creating of a child for them. Then, according to his mind's memory, it had been fast, rushed, to the point and get it overwith. He'd felt.almost used after it was over and hadn't been able to look either Alaura or Piccolo in the eye for days afterwards. Only after he'd held the little girl whose blood coursed with his own, in his arms and looked down into her perfect little face had the nagging thoughts of wondering if what he'd done was the right thing fade.  
  
"What are you thinking, Gohan?" Alaura asked, lifting her head to turn upon a gracefully long and slender throat towards him, "Your eyes seem so far away."  
  
"Too far," He agreed, absently rubbing his fingers down the skin of her bared shoulder, feeling the chill-caused gooseflesh rise up under his touch, "I was just remembering the night you.we.conceived Neko."  
  
"What I remember of that night," She said, aware of his touch and of the strange ache within her that it was creating, "Was that it was more rushed than enjoyable. It felt.I don't know.pushed. Almost as if we felt that we needed to hurry and get it overwith before we were found out."  
  
He nodded, watching the dark water before them, and said; "Exactly. I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers it that way."  
  
"But, I still wouldn't change what we did, Gohan." She said, suddenly turned to face him, chin tilted upwards to look into his handsome face as he gazed down into her cerulean eyes which seemed to shine with the light of the moon and it's many starlit offspring sparkling in their dance all around it. "I wouldn't take back the moment that brought Neko into our lives for all the tea in china! I will always be beholden to you for that, Gohan, always."  
  
He wasn't sure if it were the words or the sweetly honest and passionate way about them that make him react so, but before he knew exactly what was happening, he'd captured her small, slick mouth within his own, tasting the strawberry lip balm she used as he'd never been allowed to before, not even on that one night in the past, they'd had together.  
  
She gasped at this sudden intrusion, her eyes going from half-closed to wide open as she absently drew the palms of her hands up his chest and over his broad shoulders, feeling a warmth between her legs that left her clinging to him and unable to let go lest her knees buckle and she fall to the sand below them. He pulled away and concern drew his brows together as he realized what he'd just done.  
  
"Alaura.I." He stumbled as she struggled to recover as well, guilt pounding reletlessly on the door to her heart, making her blood run cold, "I'm sorry! I don't know what.why I just.Please, forgive me!"  
  
She did not have time to say anything to him as he took the sky and flew off, leaving her there, stranded with her own emotions and the horrible dread she felt rising within her. He had kissed her! She thought, shivering as she wrapped her arms about herself, More, she had returned that kiss. And enjoyed it! She closed her eyes as the wind picked up, delighting in tangling her hair within it's bound ponytail, whipping the strands against her flushed cheeks. Too much! 


	4. Confessions of Desire

Gohan flew at a breakneck speed, too fast for an radar to pick up more than just a blip on a screen and far too high to be spied from aground. He didn't care either way, he just felt the need to go and go swiftly. His mind was racing nearly as fast as his body and scolding himself relentless for his physically as well as emotional reaction to the woman he'd recently left alone on that beach, looking just as bewildered as he felt.  
  
As the wish rushed past his skin, through his dark hair and the earth moved in a many-colored quilt of landscapes below him, Gohan thought to himself, hardly aware that he was in fact speaking aloud, not that there was anything or anyone around to hear; "I can't believe I just.what's come over me? I can't be.attracted to Alaura, can I?" He doubled his hands into tight fists and said through gritted teeth, "Even if I am.I can't allow anything to happen. I can't betray Piccolo like that. I won't!"  
  
He paused in mid air, spun about and launched off in the direction he had come, "I'll go back an apologize to her. It's the least I can do. I don't want her thinking it was her fault when it was mine."  
  
Besides, he thought, I don't want her blabbing to Piccolo. That'd be all I would need! His face paled at the very notion of having the powerful namek angry with him.  
  
Alaura was about to turn about and go back inside, the air had been steadily turning from cool to chill and gooseflesh rose along her skin where the thin material of her chemise and outer gown did not cover. She felt a sudden rush of wind and pulled her calf-length thin robe tighter about her, cinching it in the middle with her fingers. She looked up and realized that Gohan had returned, just as suddenly as he had left.  
  
Without realization, she took an involuntary step back as he landed softly on the sun-warmed golden sand, coming towards with a mixture of confusion, fear and apology on his wind-bitten face. She did not know quite what to do or say, so she simply stood there, her hands at her chest holding the dressing gown closed over her breasts and her bare toes curling and uncurling in the wet sand at her feet, waiting.  
  
She was barely aware of what was happening when he picked her up and lifted her high into the air, his half saiyan senses reeling from the intoxicating scent of her as he nuzzled her neck and felt the loose strands of her silvery gold hair sweep across his face and become intangled within his own shorter, dark locks. What was he doing?! Some, still rational part of him demanded, Are you insane?! Put her back down on that beach, right now, before you do something you will regret!!  
  
"I came to apologize to you, Alaura." He said in a whisper meant for her ears only. She felt his breath, hot, against her ear and shivered, unable to look down for fear of falling from such a height. She clung to him now more out of the need to preserve self's own life rather than passion, but she could feel his heart pounding a rythum similar to her own and knew that his wasn't due to fear, but to something far more primal. "But, I just can't. I can't help this. I want you, Alaura. I've wanted you since the day I showed up on your doorstep searching for that dragonball.You remember?"  
  
She didn't answer, too caught up in what was happening to even form understandable words in her head, much less speak them. Gohan did not seem to notice her unease and went on, speaking rapidly as though he believed this time would be stolen from them and he'd never get another chance to say how he felt again; "I can't help this, Alaura! I can't help being attracted to you.I'm.sorry for this.But I need you.right.now."  
  
She did not know where he was taking her, nor did she care. She just wanted to be on level, or even not so level, ground once more. Her ears were ringing from being up so high and she felt more than a little frightened. She'd known Gohan for years and never had she seen him so.so fervent. The raw yearning in his dark eyes both terrified and excited her. She knew what they were doing was playing with fire, but like moths, the flame was just too enthralling to ignore.  
  
He found the place he'd been searching for, his attention on two things at once, the woman visably shuddering in his arms and the need to find a place to touch down. Gohan thought of what might happen to them both if they were found out, but quickly shoved that thought down deep into the recesses of his mind. No one would find out. No one. 


	5. Forbidden Fruit

Alaura looked around as they landed and saw that they had landed in a city park. A very large city by the looks of the skyscrapers and highway systems in the far distance. She looked at Gohan in confusion and he said; "I wanted to land here to ask you something, Alaura." When she only looked at him, fear in her eyes, though he wished she'd stop looking at him that way. He wasn't about to hurt her or let her come to any harm, "How do you feel about me? Do you feel the same as I feel about you?  
  
Don't answer right away! Think about it. I want an honest answer, even if it's no. If it's no, then," And here the pain on his face was almost too much for her to bear, she nearly threw herself into his arms just to smooth away that look from his eyes, "Then I will take you back to your beach and leave and you won't have to worry about this any longer."  
  
"Gohan, I." She started, her stomach in knots. It'd been so long, so long since Piccolo'd loved her the way he used to, in the beginning, and when Neko was a little girl. The kiss they had shared upon he and Neko's departure was about the only expression of love he'd shown her in a very long while.  
  
Not only did her heart need comforting, but she felt as if her body was wasting away as well for want of attention, any attention. She hated herself for what she was about to say, for what she was about to do, for she still kept a small flame of love burning within her for Piccolo, though it had been fading lower and lower like a candle whose wick had been burned too often, over the years, and the last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. But she, like Gohan, who stood before her with that little-boy expression of expectation and anxiousness in his eyes, could not help the way she felt nor the phyically need building up inside of her.  
  
She nodded, unable to form words and stepped into his embrace, tilting her face upwards to brush his lips with her own. He groaned as he accepted her wordless affirmation and she felt his hardness pressing against her as he lifted her, once more, to the sky. She looked down when they'd slowed and saw a series of buildings below, they all looked the same, round roofs, compact, reminding her of a storybook she'd seen as a child about these tiny creatures who dwelled within hollowed out mushrooms. He landed with her on the doorstop of one such structure and explained that it belonged to a friend of his who was, at the moment, elsewhere. He would elaborate and she did not ask him too, she simply waited while he fished a key out from somewhere and unlocked the circular door, shoving it open and gesturing her inside.  
  
She paused befor stepping over the threshold, realizing that the moment she did so, everything about her life would change, if she wished it to or not. The moment she walked into this house with Gohan, she could never go back to the way it was before. Never. Heartsick and yet still at the mercy of her body's undeniable hunger, she lifted her foot and took that step, closing her eyes suddenly as she fought to keep a certain handsome green visage from popping up behind her mind's eye.  
  
Piccolo, my love, my only, She thought, desperately, Please forgive me.I can't help needing this.  
  
Gohan reached for her and she came to him willingly, after a moment's hesitation, which seemed all but gone now as he gazed down into her ardently shadowed blue eyes and carried her towards the rear of the small abode, where he knew the bedroom was located. She felt so light and good in his arms, almost like he was carrying nothing at all, and yet he knew she was there, he could smell her womanly scent, taste her as he licked her lips with his tongue, laying her down gently on the bed, his own hardened member uncomfortably straining the material of his pants.  
  
He ran his hands down the curve of her rounded breasts, the thin material of her gown offering no real barrier and delighted in the feel of her nipples as they hardened like magic beneath his palms as he licked her cheek, the delicate angle of her jawbow and down into the sweet hollow of her throat. She sighed beneath him and tossed her head back and forth as he continued to explore with both mouth and hands all along her all ready fiery body.  
  
Hardly aware of what she was doing, it was as if she were someone other than herself and could not control her actions even if she'd wanted to, Alaura's feathery fingertips plotted a course down Gohan's battle-muscled body and slipped beneath the waistband of his pants and shorts. She heard his sharp intake of breath as she found the hardness she'd been seeking and began to massage it slowly, almost painfully with her warm little hand.  
  
She tucked at the waistband of his pants and he stopped caressing and tasting and smelling her wonderful smell long enough to aid her in her quest by removing them himself. He had all ready disposed of his shirt and tossed the pants nearby on the floor. Alaura gasped as she looked down and saw how large and how very rigid he had become. She did not remember him looking or feeling so when Neko was created. She would have remembered such an event, had it been! She felt certain. She could hardly wrap her hand about it and she felt it pulsate hotly beneath her touch, and likened the feel of his manhood to velvet over steel.  
  
Gohan hadn't expected this. He'd always assumed that Alaura was the type to be taken charge of, not the take charge type. He was pleasantly surprised and more than a little afraid of what she might do next. He thought he could stand anything just as long as she didn't suddenly decide she'd changed her mind. At the state he was in, he didn't think he'd be able to bear it.  
  
She shoved him down on the bed, her hands resting palm-down on his chest, feeling his heart beating faster and faster in time to his breathing beneath the flesh of her fingers and Kissed one of his nipples, rolling her tongue along the small peak and biting gently. She heard him start and sigh as his hands caressed her back absently. She slide her tongue down lower and lower, following the muscles of his stomach and pausing to dip the tip of her delicate little tongue around and about his navel, thrilling in the salty-sweet taste of his flesh.  
  
Just as she'd reached that part of him which ached with need the most, she paused, her face inched from the throbbing shaft, and regarded him with eyes half-closed in passion. He looked down at her, at the beauty hovering over his straining member and nearly came in an explosion of lust at the very sight she made. Instead, he used his ki to control himself and said, through gritted teeth in a desire-husky voice; "You're killing me, woman. Get on with it."  
  
Alaura bent to her task, flicking her tongue and circling around the tip of his feiry hardness, one hand all ready caressing his balls, kneading and rubbing them in time with her blistering mouth's movements. She lowered her head down, taking his entire length into her mouth and tasting him fully as if she were exploring, with her mouth, the most wonderous, delicious candy she'd ever had. She tasted the bit of secretion like thick, warm milk against her tongue from the tip of his shaft and knew that it would not be much longer.  
  
Growling, Gohan nearly savagely tore her away from him, feeling her teeth accidenly glide across his sensitive skin as he did so. The sensation did not cause him pain, in fact it seemed to heighten his pleasure and he nearly spilled his seed all over her pretty face. He rolled over on top of her, pinning her down with his weight as she slipped her ankles up about his waist. He needn't part her thighs as she had done the job for him, instead, he reached down and carefully guided the tip of his stiffness towards the enterance of her glistening cleft, her breath coming faster as she felt him rubbing himself against her in slow, torchurous movements.  
  
"Am I killing you now?" He whispered as he felt her body stiffen and her head fell backwards onto the pillow, thrashing as her hips undulated beneath him and a archaic scream of rapture escaped from her mouth as her body shook and rode the orgasm to it's very last wave. Just as she was nearly finished, he pushed himself deep inside of her and felt her slit open to accept him and then tighten spontaneously about him, enclosing him within her tautness like a prisoner.  
  
He waited, posed above her on his elbows so as not to crush her with his weight and began to move, slowly at first, gliding himself nearly all the way out only to slam hard back deep inside of her, throwing her to the bed with the force of his actions. He could not control himself any longer. He wanted release. Needed release and pounded her to the bed with his nearly brutal, animal-like lust.  
  
Alaura felt herself about to come again and cried out to the darkness of the room. Not knowing what else to do, she found Gohan's shoulder and ripped into it with her teeth, unaware of her actions or of the sticky warm blood coursing down her chin and onto her chest. She had her hands in his hair and realized that the texture had changed, she'd not noticed before, but she opened her eyes, his blood still on her lips, and saw that he seemed to glow, in fact, the very air around them seemed charged with some sort of powerful energy and his hair.his hair was no longer black!  
  
"Gohan, what.?" She gasped as he continued to pull in and out of her with abadon, intent on his task, she closed her eyes and dug her fingernails into his back, forgetting to ask him about the strange transformation in the throes of their mutual passion. She felt him stiffen above her, let out a beastial growl that was half cry of pain and half howl of joy and collapse beside her, his breath making his chest rise and fall as he struggled to regain control. When she'd looked over at him, his hair was back to normal. She shook her head mentally, thinking perhaps she'd suffered a hallucination. She decided to foget it and was about to say something when she realized that they were no longer alone. 


	6. Caught In The Act!

Alaura sat up, dizzy from their lovemaking and stared, wild-eyed at the woman who stood in the doorway, an amused expression plastured on her beautiful face, her blond hair cut in a becoming style short to her shoulders and parted down the center. She wore jeans which showed off her lean, muscular legs and a jean jacket with long, striped sleaves. She leaned against the doorjam, arms folded under her breasts and regarded them with a half-smile of pure enjoyment.  
  
"My, my." She said at last, looking from Gohan to Alaura and back to Gohan, "Just what have here?"  
  
"I." Gohan started, still not under complete control yet. Damn! He thought, this wasn't soppose to happen! "18! I thought you and Krillin weren't due back from your vacation for another week.Wh.what happened?"  
  
"I'd like to ask you the same thing, Gohan." She said, glaring at Alaura, who shrunk from her hard gaze, "Who's this tramp with you? You'd better hide her before Videl gets here."  
  
"Videl?!" Gohan looked around wildly, "She'd here? Now? Oh, my god, I can't believe this!"  
  
"I'd expect something like this from Yamcha, Gohan." She tsked, "But, not from you. And in mine and Krillin's bed, no less. I'll have to burn the sheets."  
  
"18?" Came a voice from the hall, the last voice Gohan wanted to hear at the moment, his stomach fell like lead to his feet, "Who are you talking to in there?"  
  
"Well, I hope she was worth it, Gohan." 18 said, shaking her head, "Because here comes your funeral."  
  
"18, I asked." Videl stepped around the corner and into the bedroom, where she was brought up short, her heart lurching into her throat at the sight of her man sprawled naked in bed with another, very beautiful, woman. Her face flushed in rage to the roots of her very short dark hair and she strode over to them, glaring fire down at them both. Alaura noticed her sweatshirt with the word 'Fight' scrawled cross it and feared that that was exactly was what about to happen. Instead of punching him, like he'd thought she'd do, she simply asked; "Why? Tell me why you'd do this to me.to us? Gohan, I.I mean I thought you loved me!"  
  
"Videl, I do love you!" He cried, and Alaura had never felt like such a imbecile in her entire life. How could she have made such a mistake! Not only was her life ruin but she ruined the lives of these people as well. She hated herself and wanted to die right then and there. How could she have been such a fool?! How? She stumbled to find her clothes and clumsily got dressed as Gohan tried, vainly, to explain himself to Videl, who stood with a horrible look of hurt and betrayal on her pretty face. "You've got to believe me! Please! It was.she meant.Oh, geeze! Come on! I'm sorry, okay! I'm so sorry!"  
  
Me too, Alaura thought as she slipped past them, only noting the one they'd addressed as 18 narrowing her eyes at her as she walked passed her towards the hallway and the front door beyond. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she made her way outside and swiped her arm across her face, Gohan's blood on her mouth and chin mixing wth the saltiness of her tears. I'm sorry too. She stumbled across the lawn and gained enough control of herself to walk until she found a payphone.  
  
Her hands trembling, she placed the call collect. 


	7. The Phone Call

"H-hello?" She choked into the reciever, shivering from more than just the cold as she closed the payphone's doors and enclosed herself within the upright glass casket. Her bare arms and legs were nearly turning blue with chill and her feet hurt from running barefoot down the sidewalk. She thought maybe she'd stepped in glass from something because the sole of her left foot stung when she placed her weight on it. She should never have gone with Gohan, She thought, tears stinging her eyes, Never! Look at what a mess she was in?  
  
Stranded, alone, half-naked in an unfamilair city. Alaura could have screamed if that would have made a difference. After all, she had only herself to scream at. It was no one's fault but her own. She dreaded having to explain this to Tae, who was on the other end of the phone on the cell he'd taken to carrying with him while on tour, the connection fuzzy, much less to Piccolo. Her face paled at the the thought and made a quick, emotion-driven decision. If she could help it, he'd find out later rather than sooner. She did not like keeping things from him, but she also did not want to lose him, either. Sighing, Alaura hated herself worse than anyone ever could and heaped insults silently upon herself that she felt she was only worthy of.  
  
"Mother, is that you?" The namek on the other end of the phone asked, his voice sounding far away, as if it were coming from over several round, grassy hills. Alaura, for the first time, flinched when she heard her honorary title and said; "Tae, honey, I'm in a bind. I'm stuck in a strange city.I need to get home but I have no way to."  
  
"Just a minute, Mother." Tae said and was silent for a while, finally he said, "I can pick up your faint energry from here. Your not really that far from me. I'll follow the trace I can feel from you until I reach you."  
  
Alaura nodded, forgetting that she was on a phone and the gesture meant nothing; "Please, hurry, Tae."  
  
"Are you okay?" He asked, concern easy in his tone, "Nothing's happened, has it?"  
  
If only you knew! She thought, finding his words eerily perceptive, yet she must allow him to know.not a single thing! She must bury what happened between her and Gohan deep down inside her where nothing could draw it up into the light. She prayed for the strength to do just that. "I'm.fine, Tae." She forced a smile and calmness into her voice, making it drip almost honey-sweet, "Really, I just.got lost.Come get me, please?"  
  
Tae hung up the phone, flipped the top of the cell over and tucked it back into his pocket. He had just been finishing up some routine bends and jumps in the space her shared with three others of his dance troupe when his phone had gone off. Wiping the droplets of sweat from his brow, Tae felt that everything was not okay with Alaura. He could sence it in her tone of voice. She was lying to him and he meant to find out, what, exactly, was going on with her. He grabbed his jacket, an old bomber jacket he'd picked up at a used clothing sale he'd walked past one day, and headed out the door, pausing to ask one of his room-mates, Eve, to please keep her conventional music to a mininum this night.  
  
"Sure thing, Green Bean." She laughed, enjoying the moniker she'd stuck him with upon first meeting him. He narrowed his eyes, but did not ask that she stop calling him that, after all, if she knew how much it bothered him she'd just do it all the more. "When are you coming back, so I don't accidently lock ya out?"  
  
He stopped with his hand on the doorknob, turning back to consider the lithe, raven-haired female with too much eye makeup and blouses that were cut too low and showed off far too much of her overly ample cleavage. She'd thrust those gaint mounds into his face more than once, not seeming to get it through her thick skull that he wasn't interested in her that way. To Eve Sinclair, there was no such thing as anyone not being sexually attracted to her and Tae knew that it struck her pride to be shot down, so that she had to keep trying with him even though the results would always be the same.  
  
"Maybe when you get back we can rent a movie and cuddle on the sofa." She said, in her husky voice, her ruby red lips pouty in what she considered her sexy look. To Tae, she just looked desperate and that was more than a complete turn off in and of itself. He shook his head and left, not wanting to stay and play her little games at the moment. He really should demand that he get his own room while on tour, it's not like it would cost all that much extra, he was, after all, from a wealthy family where Alaura was concerned.  
  
He took to the skies and reached out, mentally, until he could feel the faint glimmer that was Alaura's ki, weak as newborn kitten, but still there. He followed it like a beacon until he came to the exact neighborhood she was in and narrowed it down to the street and finally, flew down to land in front of the phone booth she'd used to place the call to him.  
  
Tae could still feel trace residual enegry from around the booth, but it was fading swiftly, and Alaura was nowhere to be found. As his eyes drifted downward of their own accord he gasped at the sight of the ripped and discared short robe laying on the ground outside the phone booth and the droplets of crimson which could only be one thing, staining the material.  
  
He had known that it would take him a few hours to reach her, he should have told her that and had her go find shelter somewhere safe rather than waiting outside in the dark, in a strange place, for him to get there. Now, she may be hurt.or worse! He did not wish to dwell on what could be worse, but knew that a far many things could have happened to her, none of which was filling his mind with images of pleasure. Not when there was blood upon her obviously torn by force clothing. 


	8. A Feeling of Dread

They were only a few days away from entering Jalamir's atmosphere and Neko had spent most, if not all, of the trip in the room built into the ship especially designed for training. She had even asked Piccolo to turn up the gravity steadily so that she could find it more of a challenge. Her heart beat out a rythum in her chest that sounded like the promise of long awaited battle drums to her ears and with every beat she knew she was coming closer and closer to seeing her dream a reality.  
  
"I wonder how Larajin." She began, but Piccolo interrupted her, floating, in lotus-position in the center of the room, he opened one eye and ceased his meditation for a moment, "She is Queen now, Neko. You must not forget her title."  
  
Neko hurmphed under her breath as she watched her father slip back into his altered state. She went on with the series of kicks and blocks he'd taught her as a little girl, working up to a glowing sweat as she progressed. She did not care what the bitch called herself, she could be Miss Goddamned America for all she cared. All she knew was that, when the time came, she would be the one to weild the weapon and slick that bitch's head from her shoulders and Neko would have a brand new decoration to hang up on her bedroom wall when she returned home.  
  
"Are you planning on just marching straight up to the castle, or where ever and annoucing yourself and your challenge to her, Neko?" Piccolo asked, his deep voice startling her out her routine and she stood there, panting, leaning forward with her hands on her knees and her ever-present tail swishing behind her. She regarded her father with a raised eyebrow a smirk, "Why not? She'll have to answer me if she doesn't want to seem a fool or a coward."  
  
"I know you could never be a coward, Neko," Piccolo said, as he lowered himself to the floor of the ship and started over to the food storage container for the ice water they had stocked, taking out one packet and puncturing it with his fangs. He drank deeply for a few moments, then went on; "I'm just not so sure about the fool part."  
  
He knew she was seething at his remark as he turned his back on her and headed back to the helm, leaving her alone in her misery. He did not know why, but he just could not continue his meditation around her any longer. He scolded himself for that, he had trained himself to be able to ignore even the most obnoxious intrusions upon his meditation, so he should have been able to handle his angry, moody daughter. He made his way through the ship and was suddenly caught by an odd, unexpected feeling deep in his gut.  
  
Instictively, his thoughts flew to Alaura and as his stomach forced itself into knots too tight to simple unravel with calm breathing and exercise, he knew, instantly, that something was wrong. That she had done something.something he couldn't quite place, but knew without knowing that it was bad. Very bad. Piccolo needed to find out why he was all of a sudden feeling this way and where this feeling was coming from.  
  
Nothing good can come of this, He thought, frowning, nay, glaring at the closed door in front of him, Nothing. 


	9. Regret

"Alaura?" Tae called, his voice hardly rising above a whisper, "Mother.?" He could still feel trace bits of her energy, like drippings from an ice cream cone, and followed them, hoping to find her in one piece. What in the world was she doing out here anyway? He thought, Why didn't she just call a cab to take her home? He shook the questions from his head, his antannae trembling with the motion, and focused on at least finding her. It was, after all, the most important thing right now.  
  
Slipping into an alley he squeezed his eyes nearly shut, trying to determine shadow from shadow in the darkened corridor between two run-down buildings. He heard a faint rustling of paper and his heart nearly stopped, moving towards the sound, but paused when he heard the sharp yowl of a cat and saw a streak of black race from the back of the alley passed his feet and around the corner.  
  
The light from a passing vehical curved and caught something familiar to his dark eyes. He realized it was the delicate structure of a small, bone- white feminine hand flung out from a heap of odds and ends and trash, laying there like an injured bird. Tae ran to it, afraid that he may have come too late, and his eyes followed the listless hand up it's wrist and bare arm towards the head hanging at an uncomfortable angle on the shoulders.  
  
"Alaura.no!" Tae gasped as he pulled the woman from the rubble, her head flopping like a dead fish on her shoulders, her eyes closed and all ready beginning to bruise. What happened to her? He thought, frantically, desperatly feeling for a pulse. He held her to his chest, pulling her onto his lap as his hands felt the sticky-cold of drying blood clinging to her to normally lusterious silvery blonde hair and forced calmness into himself so that he could find the healing power within himself for the task at hand. "Who did this to you, Mother?" He whispered as he carefully arranged her lifeless body on the cement before him. He wondered if he'd even get an answer, ever, to that question.  
  
As the warmth of the healing energy flowed from deep within himself towards and around and inside of her, they lit up the darkness around them with a golden, pulsating glow. Beneath his fingers, Tae felt inside injuries mend, broken bones knit back together and surface wounds close up and disapear. He poured all of himself into his power and forced the healing to take on a faster rate than it normally would. He did not feel at all safe, alone in the alley where he'd found her beaten and half-dead. In his healing state he was as vulnerable as a newborn kitten and did not enjoy the feeling. The faster this was done, the better.  
  
Alaura opened her eyes, they felt heavy to her, almost too heavy, as if she'd just drunk more than her share of some intoxicating beverage. Her eyes focused slowly and she saw the young namek staring down at her with worried eyes. She recognized him and cried out; "Oh, Tae! You came! It was awful." She winced as her hand flew to her head, feeling it's pounding ache.  
  
"Your still in pain?" Tae asked, raising his hands to her head, "Let me."  
  
"N-no," She pulled back, suddenly feeling unworthy of such attentions, she deserved everything she got, she thought bitterly, biting back the tears, she should suffer in pain. It was only just. "I'll be okay, Tae. It's probably just a concussion, anyway, I remember hitting my head on the ground."  
  
"Do you know who could have done this to you, Alaura?" He asked, respecting her wishes not to touched at the moment, he assumed if her head hurt too much she would either seek a pill of some sort or his healing again. He decided not to worry about it, "Can you remember?"  
  
"I don't know, Tae." She said, pulling her bare knees up to her chin and circling her arms around them. He saw her shivering, though from post trauma or cold, he was certain, "It's all such a blur. There were shadows, about four men from the looks of their shapes and the sounds of their laughter, then all of a sudden, one of them hit me on the back of my head and everything went black. I remember waking up breifly to them kicking and punching me and it hurt so bad that I must have fallen uncoscience again."  
  
"Come on," He said, angry more than anything at such vile creatures who would do such a thing to someone obviously weaker and outnumbered, "I'll fly you home."  
  
Alaura heard the barely hidden rage in his voice as he lifted her up and took off with her into the air, her arms around his neck as she prayed he wouldn't suddenly drop her to her death, not that he would, but such thoughts tend to fly into one's mind while faced with the possibility. She thought to herself; No need to aim your anger at them, Tae, I'm the one you should be hating. It was probably fate that had a hand in what happened to me tonight. It was my punishment. It had to have been. She forced that belief into herself, refusing to harbor any such idea that it wasn't her fault at all, that she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
  
"Are you sure your going to be okay, Mother?" Tae asked after seeing her safe inside the beachhouse, she'd wanted to return to it, claiming the sound of the oceon roar in her ears was soothing, "I can have my understudy cover for me in the next preformace and."  
  
She shook her head, curled up on the sofa, an afgan of many hues around her and a steaming cup of green tea in her hands. She brought the cup to her face and inhaled the gentle scent as stream rose up in tendrils about her face and hair, "I'll be fine, Tae. You must not miss your preformace. I'm so proud of you. Tae? You know I love you, don't you?"  
  
"I know." He said, wishing he could stay there with her. Something about her tone of voice, it was too calm, too.something.that made his blood run cold with some unnamed terror. He saw a strange look in her shadowed blue eyes and asked her once more, if she was certain she would be all right alone here. She laughed, the sound forced and faked and nodded, "Go, Tae. Don't waste your time worrying about me. I'll be fine, I all ready told you."  
  
Still not convinced, Tae took his leave then, but the worry that had taken up residence inside his head would not leave, not matter how he tried to shove it out. Perhaps when Piccolo and Neko returned, she would be better, everything would be better, he thought, he hoped. 


	10. Planet Jalamir

"I don't remember it looking this.small." Neko said, looking around at the series of oddly shaped buildings of various hues and the overhead hanging lamps which shone brightly in the early evening sky. Piccolo walked beside her, ducking momentarily as a child on a hover bike grazed a bit too close overhead. He could see the palace, shining like a polished jewel in the star filled sky. He and Neko contined towards it, ignoring the random odd look from pedestrians.  
  
"You were never on Jalamir, Neko." Piccolo said, as a little girl who looked like a twin of Mira, gaped up at him with her eyes as wide as her mouth before she was jerked roughly away by an older female before they walked by, "You saw the inside of the royal ship, and only a fraction of it."  
  
Neko was silent as she considered this. She must have mistaken the inside of Larajin's ship as being on the planet in her childish memories. Well, she was very young and small at the time, and the ship had been quite huge, it was easy to make such a mistake. It did not matter anyway. They were there for only one reason and one reason only.  
  
"I do not know how they take care of their dead, but if we can find out where Mira was.buried.or whatever," Piccolo said, as they turned a corner, "You can finally say good bye to Mira and."  
  
Suddenly, Neko stopped and spun around, hands on her hips and her face tilted in anger, "Do you think that is the reason I agreed to come with you?" She said through clentched teeth, "Father, you must know me better than that. I've come for revenge. For Mira."  
  
"Neko." Piccolo began, feeling that strange sense of apprehension again, "I have a very bad feeling that something isn't right back on Earth."  
  
"It won't take long, Father." Neko said, cracking her knuckles as she turned to face the turrets of the distant palace, "This is something I have to do. Can you understand that?"  
  
He nodded, he understood only too well the need for vengence. It was a need that ate at you, day after day, year afer year, until you were almost completely consumed. He knew his daughter would not rest until her need was sated. He just hoped he wouldn't have to bring her decapitated head back to her mother when all this was said and done.  
  
"Halt!" The guard was male and looked human, his ears weren't pointed like the females they had seen, Neko found that a bit odd, but did not question it. They had gotten to the palace gates and had to go through the twin- like well-armed gaurds before they could progress further, "What is your business here, Offlanders?"  
  
"We're from Earth," Neko stepped forward, her gaze level with the helmeted gaurds, focusing on the one who had spoken in a gravelly voice as he leaned on his deadly diamond-tipped lance, "We have urgant business with the Queen."  
  
"Queen Larajin is not to be disturbed." He said, crossing his weapon over his partner's, blocking their path to the enterance, "Under no circumstances."  
  
"Move out of the way!" Piccolo yelled, becoming more than fed up, "Now."  
  
The one guard shook his head, the metal of his armor clanking with the movement, "Sorry, No can do. Orders, you know."  
  
"If you do not move out of our way," Piccolo's voice was low now, and any creatue with a brain could hear the veiled threat, "I will personally move you!"  
  
"I'm sorry, big guy." The other guard spoke now, his voice was more high- pitched and girlish, "Orders are orders. If we make an expection for you, what will everyone else think?"  
  
Weary of all this useless chatter, Piccolo picked up both men by their necks and, before they could even cry out in protest, slammed ttheirmetal- helmed heads together. The resounding clang made a satifactory sound as he dropped them into a pile next to the gates and shoved them open himself.  
  
"You know," Neko said, as they walked through, looking up over the tall fence surrounding the palace, "We could have just flown over."  
  
Piccolo shrugged, thinking how good it felt to shut those cocky gaurds up. Neko turned her attention on the large, rounded door of the palace, which was surrounded in what looked to be many different glittering jewels and silver within gold. The walls of the palace itself looked to be formed from oceandeep pearls and rainbow hues faded within and out of the walls in the overhead lights set up all around the grounds. It was the most wonderous things she'd ever seen and stood, awed, for just a moment.  
  
Piccolo watched his daughter as she paused, face upwards, and took in the sight of the massive, glittering abode of Larajin, now Queen Larajin. For a fraction of a second, her dark eyes seemed almost childlike again and innocent. Then, as if catching herself in an act she did approve of, the look vanished and was replaced with one he was more familiar with; Determined tempered rage. She banged on the door with both fists, demanding enterance. 


	11. Emotional Outbursts

"I.can't..believe.you'd.do.this.to.me!" Each word was said through tight teeth and punctuated with a dish or a glass slamming against the wall, inches from his head, "What were you thinking!? Oh, wait, I know what you were thinking.we ALL know what you were thinking!"  
  
She gestured to 18 and Krillin, who stood back at a safe distance and watched, 18 looking amused and Krillin looking as if he pitied Gohan and also a little amused. Gohan could amost heard him thinking; "Better him than me."  
  
"Videl! Please!" Gohan tried, again, as he had been over the last few hours, to explain himself to her with no luck at all, "It was an accident! I swear it! Please stop breaking things!"  
  
"An accident?!" She raged, a place held overhead, she didn't know why she was throwing the dishes at him instead of just pounding his face in, but the feel of the ceramic as it left her hand and smashed against the wall was oddly comforting. She didn't care that she probably looked and sounded like Bulma in a rage, all she saw and felt at the moment was crimson anger and hurt, "An accident?! Cheating on your girlfriend is not an accident! What did you do, trip and fall and land with your dick in her."  
  
"Videl!" He cried, ducking as another plate shattered against the wall, "I can see your upset.I'll just go and you can calm down and we can talk later."  
  
She threw another plate at the back of his retreating head and smiled as it hit home. He fell forward a little bit and held the back of his head, crying out in surprise more than pain. He never actually thought she'd really try to hit him. He heard Krillin snicker, but when he glanced at him the smaller man merely shrugged in a mixture of apology and pity. 18 just continued to look amused.  
  
"I can't believe what happened." Gohan said to himself as he took off into the late night sky after stepping out of the house, "How could I have been so stupid! Now, I've probably lost the only woman I really love! How can Videl ever forgive me now? I wouldn't forgive me! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"  
  
As soon as the door shut, Videl fell to the ground in tears, her shoulders shaking and her short dark hair shivering atop her head. She sobbed into her hands, all the spleen gone from her voice as she said in a pitiful whisper; "How can I have lost him this way? I thought he loved me."  
  
"Videl." Krillin began but she waved him away without looking up, not wanting to hear any words of comfort at the moment. She sniffled and ran her hand across her eyes, smearing her tears and looking like a hurt little child. Krillin wanted to go over and give her a hug but was afraid he'd get a plate thrown at his head. He turned to 18 with a shrug of confusion. She sighed and stepped forward, saying, "Leave us alone, Krillin. Only another woman can know how she feels."  
  
"But."  
  
"Go!" 18 yelled, before turning to Videl, "Everything's going to be okay, Videl. You'll get over him.I promise."  
  
"That's the problem, 18!" Videl cried, looking up at 18 with narrowed, red- rimmed eyes, "I don't want to get over him! I don't want to lose him! I still love him!"  
  
"After what he did to you?!" 18 cried out, "Don't you want to smash his face in?!" She made a gesture of one fist pounding the palm of her other hand at Videl.  
  
Videl nodded, "Of course I do, 18!" She said, "But I still love him and don't want to break up with him, that hasn't changed even though I am still pissed as hell at him."  
  
18 shook her head; "I don't understand you, Videl." She added, "You're not making any sense."  
  
"I know!" Videl said, sniffling back more tears, "I can't help it, though!" 


	12. Queen Larajin's Pleasure Room

Neko was surprised that no one else challenged them as they made their way through the giant palace, whose floors were so black and shiney she wondered if they were made of onyx and reflected like mirrors there images back at them. The walls were adorned with all types of artistic beauty; from paintings of many styles to tapestries waving gently in the wake of the breeze they made as they hurried onward.  
  
She saw several pedestals of what looked like ivory, or some form of ivory at least, on which rested elaborate vases and busts of women with serious expressions. Neko noticed, also, that no male busts adorned the halls of the palace, as if they weren't as important as the women. She didn't know how she felt, exactly, about that. She believed that each gender was equally important, each bringing his or her unique traits and abilities to a situation. Perhaps on Jalamir that wasn't the case. Shrugging, she followed her father, who said he could easily find the throne room, or where ever Queen Larajin was, due to his hearing being more acute than her's.  
  
"She's behind this door, Neko." Piccolo stopped at a very tall, slightly rounded door engraved with several shapes that were both beautiful and frightening, he knew his daughter needed to what she came for before her heart will be able to rest. Even if it meant that he may lose her. "Are you sure you are ready?"  
  
"Father," Neko said, "I was a little girl when I saw my friend killed. I could not hope to win against her then. But, I've been training ever since and I feel in my heart that this was meant to be. Ready or not, I have no choice. I must do this."  
  
Without warning, she half ran, half stumbled into his arms and hugged him fiercly, whispering; "I'll always love you, Da."  
  
Piccolo returned her embrace, touched that she would revert back to her childhood name for him, if only for the moment. She knows, He thought to himself as she backed from his arms and prepared to go through the closed door towards whatever fate awaited her beyond, She knows that she may not be coming home with me.  
  
** I'll always love you, Neko ** He touched her mind telepathically, and saw her smile softly, ** Never forget, I'm proud of you. **  
  
She opened the door and he followed her inside.  
  
The room was big, but that's not saying much since the entire place was gigantic in porportion, but this room seemed larger than any other they had seen in the palace. The walls and floor glittered with many different gems set inside the stone and the floor was covered with animal hides dyed rainbow hues. Soft light swayed from the ceiling in the form of crystal, or diamond, chandeliers and several stainglassed windows were set all around the circular room.  
  
She lounged on a curved bed of many colored satin and silk throw pillows, wearing her royal crown with the arched points and the blue jewel in the center perfectly matching the decorative headboard of the furniture she rested upon. Holding her jeweled septor as several scantily clad well- oiled young men of exceptional comliness gathered around her and fawned over her. Soft, strange pipe-filled music flowed all around the room and added a soothing, seductive aura to the area.  
  
"Larajin!" Neko said, her voice echoing in the room, stepping up to the raised dais on which the Queen rested, "I have come to challenge you."  
  
Larajin opened her eyes slowly, the sanguineous drink she'd been holding splashed a few droplets upon her chest and dripped down into her cleavage, struggling to focus on the two intruders. Stupid gaurds! She thought, as she waved away one of the slaves who tried to take a silk napkin to her skin and clean up the mess as another bent to retreive and refill her chalice. Can't they do anything right? I told them I did not wish to be disturbed!  
  
She glared at the newcomers, uncertain who they were or why they were saying they wished to challenge her. Challenge her? To what? To what end? What was this foolishness? She held her septor aloft as she sat up and blinked a few times at the smaller of the pair, a girl who looked no more than a child, she noticed her rounded ears, a human child! No.she saw Neko's swishing tail and took back that thought, she'd remembered seeing people with tails before.She rubbed her eyes, her memory as foggy as her vision after four glasses of rubywine and they way Kalynni made it, it was a wonder she could still function at all. But, she had been celebrating after all, and was to be forgiven her current drunken state.  
  
But the child before her and the tall, rather heavily muscular green-hued alien in the white turban and matching cape behind her obviously did not plan on leaving her pleasure room anytime soon and the look she saw in the child's face unnerved her for some reason.  
  
"What is this?" Larajin cried out, faking outrage to cover up her fear, "Who let you in here? Gaurds! Gaurds!"  
  
Piccolo winced at her shrill screams and stifled the urge to shut her up.permantly. He wouldn't take that privilege from his daughter, no matter how badly he ached to do so. The Queen paled when no one came to her rescue, feeling dizzy from the drink as she came to her feet and made her way down the steps to the floor so as to be level with Neko.  
  
"I know you!" She cried, upon taking a closer look at the pair, "Yes, I remember. You were the ones who houses my darling little sister all those years ago. But, I won that fight, I killed her fairly and gained the crown, what business have you two with the Queen of Jalamir?"  
  
"That fight was unfair and you know it, Larajin!" Neko nearly screamed, forcing herself to stay calm and not show any weakness to her opponite, "Mira was just a child, unskilled in combat, while you'd been training for that fight for centuries!"  
  
Queen Larajin shrugged, seemingly unimpressed with this girl's knowledge of her planets' royal customs and histories, though it was very impressive that an offlander would take the time to learn these things. She yawned behind her bejeweled hand and said; "Fine. You wish to avenge some wrong you believe I committed against Jalamira?" She cocked her head to the side and gazed at Neko as if looking at a particularily ugly type of insect, "Is that pretty much the jist of this little visit to my world?"  
  
Neko nodded, still glaring and still trying to keep her hands from forming fists to pummel into the hateful Queen's face, to wipe that smug look of a face too perfect to be real, too much like the beauty of an ice queen, hard and cold in more than just looks. "I've come to make you pay for what you did to my friend."  
  
"So you've said." Queen Larajin said, having trouble keeping her balance, she giggled and added; "When do you want to do this, child? Right now?"  
  
Neko prepared to take a step forward, wanting to smash the woman's face in as hard as she could, but she felt Piccolo's staying hand on her shoulder and she paused, glancing back at him. He shook his head, and said to Larajin, who still blinked at them, her eyes focusing and unfocusing; "Not when your too drunk to stand up, Queen Larajin." He glared out of ebony eyes at her, looking as disgusted as he felt, "Such an opponite is not only not worthy, they're in insult to fight. Neko, I know, would want the battle to be honorable and it won't be if you're falling down from too much drink."  
  
"Neko.?" Queen Larajin asked, smiling, "Ah, yes. That's your name. Very well, Neko." She clapped her hands twice and two slaves, who looked to be twins, appeared and approached her, "Show my.guests.to a place they can rest and refresh themselves." To the pair she added, "We'll speak again in two days, when we shall finish this."  
  
Piccolo nodded, but the back of his mind was home to several disturbing thoughts, one of which was the constant impression of trepidation that had not been banished from his thoughts at all. For some reason Alaura's lovely countenance appeared behind his mind's eye and his blood ran cold. He knew that he must return to Earth as soon as possible. He only hoped he wasn't too late and something horrid had happened to Alaura in his absence. But, he would not leave Neko to face the bitch-queen alone. He knew that he would be lending his daughter whatever support and encouragement he could.  
  
They followed the bare-backed slave men from the room, Piccolo noticed that all the males they had seen thus far appeared like normal males from Earth, they did not have the long, pointed ears that the Jalamir females all seemed to have. He wondered if this were a result of evolution or if the males actually were taken from Earth or an Earth-like planet and forced into slavery here. He also wondered, breifly, why none of them dared rebel and escape. It wasn't as if they were weaker than their captures, mere females, were they? He shrugged, deciding that what another being does with their lives is no concern of his.  
  
"Within are your rooms, M'Lady." One of the twins bowed deeply at Neko, touching his forhead to the dark, mirror-like floor, "We hope your stay is comfortable." His twin chimed in, kissing the back of her hand. Neko pulled her hand away and bend down to touch the bowing one's head.  
  
"You don't have to genuflect to me." She said to him, as he rose once more, his face red with uncertainy, "I am no one special."  
  
"Forgive us our error, M'Lady." His twin cried, "We mean no disrespect, it's just the way of things on Jalamir. Men are not allowed to leave a woman's presence without showing her proper respect and gratitude."  
  
"This is a strange world." Neko shook her head, But deciding to go along with their ways for now, however odd they seemed to her, "What are your names, so that I may call upon you should I need anything?"  
  
The blonde, golden-skinned twins beamed at her and annouced their names proudly; "I am called Ral and this is my twin brother Dal." "Hmm," Neko said, glancing at Piccolo, "Should be easily to remember. Ral and Dal."  
  
Ral and Dal nodded and Dal added; "They mean "Twin" and "His Brother." Literally."  
  
Neko nodded, "Makes sense." She wondered if all slaves names were so.uncreative. She shrugged, deciding not to care at the moment as all she could think about was besting their queen in the upcoming fight. Perhaps she would even free these pretty boys after she'd wiped the floor with their Queen's face. It was a nice thought. 


	13. Misery and Remorse

For the first time in a long time, Alaura stepped into the room that had been specially built onto the house as her dance studio. She hadn't felt the urge to go through the routines she could do by heart now since before Neko was born. This evening, however, she felt that sutle urge become stronger and stronger.  
  
She put the music on, something fast and harsh and in time to her roiling emotions. With her body still aching from the beating she'd received earlier that night, and her face still a mess, all black and blue with her lip split and one eye nearly swollen shut, Alaura forced her arms and legs into the motions and soon, as she allowed the music and the feeling of weightlessness overcome her, she gradually forgot about her pains and the fact that she just betrayed the only person who ever really loved her for herself and not for her family's money.  
  
Alaura spun around the room in a frenzy of activity, anyone watching would have said she looked like a madwoman. She did not care. She danced her pain and anger, fueling the movements with the sharp, aching void that was her heart now. Her eyes were closed, knowing how to do every little step by memory without the fear of running into something, her light hair flew out at all different angles from her head as she felt the sudden rush of rage-filled tears drip down her cheeks and over her cut lip, the saltiness of them stinging the raw wound.  
  
She did not care. In a fury she flew across the room, becoming another person; Someone who dwells deep inside her and demands, upon occasion to be let out to play. She did not particularily like this person, this other self, as she could be very frightening at times, but found that she could not deny her this agitation paced routine.  
  
The music on the turn table stopped, the needle scratching one place over and over drilling the sound into Alaura's all ready aching head. She slumped down onto the floor, sweat dripping cold down her back and under her arms and between her breasts. Breathing hard, she pounded her fists on the hard floor, in a childlike tantrum. She hated everything about herself. Oh, why did I have to do it? She asked herself, had been asking herself, over and over since Tae had left her house earlier. How will I ever tell him? I can I ever tell him?  
  
She had thought that perhaps if she threw herself into her dancing and lost herself to the movements and the music as she'd always been able to do before, that she would be able to forget, for a time, her terrible transgression. It had only worked for a few moments, then, she went back to despising herself and what her weak will had allowed to happen.  
  
"Piccolo." She whispered, seeing his face behind her eyelids, "How will you ever forgive me?"  
  
For she planned on telling him. She had thought about keeping it secret, what happened between her and Gohan, but she knew that she could not keep something like this from him, besides, if she did not come forth with honesty and explain what happened, she was willing to bet that he would find out sooner or later from a third party. Then, it would be a hundred times worse.  
  
She just wished she could stop this feeling of apprehension circling like black butterflies around her stomach. Alaura knew that things were going to change drastically when Piccolo and Neko returned. She also knew that most of those changes would not be positive. Not in the least. 


	14. Neko's Eagerness

It had been less than two days since they had arrived on the metropolis- like planet of Jalamir. Neko and Piccolo had been given a suite of rooms more suited to a visiting dignitary than two strangers seeking closure and vengence for a past deed. Neko did not mind the space, she just used it to further her training, shoving the circular, satin-sheeted bed to the end the room along with it's twin and rolling up the thick, seemingly bearskin rugs.  
  
Piccolo, for his part, either aided his daughter in her training, keeping her on her toes, or spent the time in meditation. The door was opened but once, after one of the slave-men had brought a tray of assorted meats and fruits on a golden platter to them. Neko had thanked the man politely, seeing him flush with pride at the attention of the strange girl-child from the planet Earth, and devoured the entire platter's worth in less than five minutes, patting her bulging stomach and belching loudly when she had finished.  
  
Piccolo opened one eye and regarded his daughter coolly; "Perhaps you can do that on the battle field and your breath will stun her into submission."  
  
She cast a baleful look his way, an almost mirror of one his own expressions, as she sat crossed-legged on one of the beds and licked the crumbs from her fingers. "I don't want her submission, Father," She said, between a last mouthful, she swallowed and added, more clearly, "I want her dead."  
  
"Afterwards, Daughter," Piccolo said, more seriously, given the reason for this visit, "Will that quench the thirst for blood you feel inside you? Or will you need find others who have done you some slight that deserve to taste your wrath?" "This isn't about 'some slight', Father!" She cried, knocking the tray to the floor with a clatter as she leapt to her feet, fists clenched at her sides, her eyes smoldering, "A 'slight' I could forgive! Why must I always go over this with you?! I had thought you of all people could understand."  
  
"I do understand, Neko." Piccolo spread his hands, standing before her, aching to take her into his arms and hold her until her anger and rage faded like a bad dream. But, he knew, it was not as simple as a fatherly touch or word, not this time, not for a long time, "I understand probably better than you'll ever know. Which is why I am trying so hard to steer you from this path.before you regret it."  
  
"Steer me from it?" She asked, looking up into his handsome, strong green- skinned features, "Than why are you helping me, even now? Why even allow this journey to take place, and help me train for the outcome we both know is fated? If you are so against this, why are you even here?"  
  
"Because, Neko, I cannot let you do this alone." He said, touching her shoulder with one hand, "Because I love you too much to allow you to die, alone, on a strange world. And we both know that if I hadn't gotten that ship from one of your mother's relatives' friends, you would have only found a way to come her yourself, alone and unprepared."  
  
Neko nodded, it was true. She knew, nothing would have kept her from coming to Jalamir and claiming her victory over that bitch Larajin. Nothing. She smiled and laid her hand over her father's. "Thanks." She said, before twisting her arm in such a way that he was nearly flipped over, nearly, "But, let's not waste anymore time." She said as she looked up at him from where she had been the one to fall, springing back to her feet with instant, cat-like grace.  
  
After a while, a few more days, a few more trays of food and walks through the garden with the twin slaves, Ral and Dal, and long, tiresome bouts of training to hone her skills as a fighter, Neko began to get more than a little restless. She wondered what was taking her highness so long to annouce she was ready to meet on the battle field. Probably gorging herself on drink and well-muscled male slaves within her so-called 'pleasure room' again, she thought bitterly.  
  
They had come to the lust palace gardens that afternoon because Piccolo had seemed weary of looking at the same four walls with no sunlight to gain strength from anywhere about. She sat on one of the elaboratly carved wooden benches, her customary blood-red gi had a few tears here and there so she was wearing a garment of loose, flowing material that made her feel as if she were naked and indeed seemed translucent in it's dark and lavender purple hues.  
  
She donned a needle and some crimson thread which had been found for her upon her request and went about the task of mending her clothing. Even though she knew Piccolo could just as easily summon a new gi out of the air for her, as is part of his powers, still, he did not because he knew it was better to take care of one's possesions and not just assume that if something is ruined, it may be replaced at a moment's notice. Neko had been mending her own clothes since she could thread a needle, and she knew it was good for her, although tedious at times. When Dal tried to take it from her, claiming that no guest of the royal house should need to do any menial labor, she refused to give it over and proceeded with the task she could now do blindfolded, as her thoughts wandered of their own accord.  
  
She was hardly aware when Ral sat beside her and began to unbind the two small buns on either side of her head she had taken to styling her long, raven-dark hair in over the past few years. She felt the pins slip out and her hair tumble down her back and shoulders and he raised a comb to her tangled locks, forcing the comb's teeth through the snarls made from too much training and not enough personal hygeine. She winced, and started to tell him to leave her be, but he wasn't as placid as his twin and refused to be put off.  
  
"I'd just let him finish, Daughter." Piccolo said, from behind and above her as he floated, taking in the nourishing sunlight, "He is only doing what he's been trained to do."  
  
Sighing, Neko allowed her hair to be combed, brushed, scented with oils smelling faintly of rose and lavender, and restyled into the way she had it before, sans the tangles. She looked down and saw Dal at her feet, smiling up at her with large dark eyes that somehow made her think of a lost puppy she'd once found as a child who followed her everywhere and wore that same expression of sickening adoration. She suddenly felt as if she were choking on all this attention and sprang to her feet, cluching her newly repaired gi to her chest as she nearly screamed.  
  
"Ugh! What is taking her so long?!" She cried, "It's been past the day she first told us she'd be ready! How much longer are we to stand this.this treatment?!"  
  
Ral and Dal exchanged hurt looks and Piccolo ignored them entirely. To Neko he said, "You still do not have much in the way of paitence, Daughter."  
  
"Paitence?!" She cried, it seemed she was always a storm about to blow, "How paitent does a person have to be, for god's sake!"  
  
Before he could respond, Neko spun about and slammed through the double green-tinted glass doors which led to the greenhouse and than to the palace interior. She left behind a crackling residual of energy that Piccolo would have been able to feel even had he no eyes or ears. He glanced at the twin slaves and saw that strands of their hair upon their heads were standing on end.  
  
She is eager for the fight, he knew, he just hoped she remembered all he'd taught about controlling and focusing her ki when the time came and not losing it and go flying off the handle in a torrent of fury that would only be used against her. Piccolo sighed heavily and went back to his meditation, trying, for days, it seemed, to rid himself of the terrible feeling which had been tormenting him since their arrival. 


	15. Gohan's ConfessionPiccolo's Rage

He stood on the roof of the tallest building he could find, the stars were bright and seemed almost close enough to reaach out and touch. His dark hair whipped about his head and unshed tears made his eyes ache. He glared at the half-moon and stood with arms crossed over his chest, deep in thought.  
  
Gohan always came here, to this roof, late at night, when something was troubling him. The isolation and cold brick against his skin as he leaned against a wall, always served to calm his mind and help him to think things through. It was, he thought, almost better than flying because he did not even have to give a fraction of his attention to staying aloft, his mind was free to unravel and untangle his thoughts and emotions freely, without intrusion.  
  
He was thinking about Alaura. More to the point, he was thinking about what he'd done with Alaura, that one night of meaningless passion that would ruin their lives forever. He was also thinking about Videl and how much his heart ached for her and only her. He had not realized it while he was holding Alaura, but in his mind's eye, thinking back on that night, it was not Alaura's golden beauty he saw in his arms, laying in rapture as he thrust beneath her, it was Videl's exquisite features contorted into expressions of pure bliss.  
  
Now, he feared, he would never have the chance to live out his dreams. It seemed, due to one selfish act, that his heart's desire was doomed to be no more than a schoolboy fantasy. He blinked back the tears that wanted their freedom, as the hard lump took form in his throat and echoed the feeling in his gut and another thought rose up behind his closed lids.  
  
Piccolo. He opened his eyes, shaking his head and feeling a hundred times worse than he all ready did. How could he have forgotten, for even a fraction of a moment, that Alaura belonged to him? He did not want a confrontation with the powerful namek and he certainly never meant to hurt or betray him in any way, but he just could not keep something like this from him. To do so would be adding salt to an all ready gaping, festering wound and that he could not do.  
  
He knew he had to tell Piccolo what happened and just hope that he could be forgiven. If not, Gohan thought, as the cold breeze picked up and sent a shiver down his spine, I don't want to even think about that possibility.  
  
Gohan knew that Piccolo had taken Neko, really his own daughter though kept a secret from since the day they found out she was within Alaura's womb, awaiting her birth, to the planet Jalamir on a mission for Neko's sake and would not be returning for a few more weeks at the latest, but he knew, if he tried, he could reach out, past the stars and blackness of space, with his mind and energy and touch his old friend and teacher with his thoughts as easily as if they were speaking on the telephone from two blocks away.  
  
Closing his eyes and consentrating on his task, Gohan began to reach out with his mind, seeking, sensing, feeling. At last, as sweat began to bead upon his brow, he heard Piccolo's mind's voice in his head, asking him what was the matter that he felt the need to use telepathy from such a distance.  
  
Reluctantly, but knowing he had no other choice, Gohan told Piccolo of the night he'd spent with Alaura. Gohan, his guilt and misery clearly felt through the intimate communion, explained to Piccolo how it was not Alaura's fault, that she was just helpless to resist when he set out to seduce her that night, even though he knew, really, that they had both done a little of the seducing and both were to blame if either one was, but he did not wish Alaura to suffer for what he believed was soley his mistake.  
  
Piccolo was silent for a long time. He stood in the greenhouse, about to go back inside once more, when he'd felt Gohan's mindtouch urgently seeking a response. He'd thought that someone was in trouble, perhaps dead, back on Earth and had answered Gohan's call with a twinge of fear. But, nothing could have prepared him for what the boy was now telling him. Had now just told him. He felt as he'd been submerged in a pleasantly warm bath only to have someone dump a truckload of ice on his head, suddenly and without warning.  
  
He felt like he couldn't breath, no air would enter his nose or mouth to reach his lungs and he gasped as a new feeling sliced across his insides, like nothing he'd ever experienced before. All he could see when he closed his eyes were images of the woman he loved more than life itself giving herself to another, to the one person he thought he could trust above all others, to the one person he never thought would stoop.  
  
"Nooooo!" His eyes flew open as the scream rent from his throat and mouth and his fingertips tingled with power. A sudden flash of light and sound so loud that his sensitve ears were left ringing, and a bolt of power shot upwards from his hands, shattering the greenhouse ceiling above him. Piccolo flew through the broken glass, ignoring the small cuts and slices on his skin as he sped through the jagged hole he had created, flying blindly, screaming in rage and pain as he felt Gohan's mind shrink from his own in barely concealed fear.  
  
Piccolo wanted to hurt something as bad as he was now hurting. He wanted to return to Eath right then and there and confront Gohan and Alaura. Alaura.Alaura, how could she have done this? He thought over and over as he used his destructive powers on mountains and trees and tried to rid himself of the feeling that if he stopped destroying things and stood still long enough, that he would just curl up and die. He wanted someone to pay for this.  
  
He wanted Gohan and Alaura to pay for how he was feeling; Hurt, empty, betrayed. "How could they have done this?" He asked himself, panting, in midair, hands on his thighs as sweat dripped into his eyes and his annatae trembled, "Gohan.I thought of him as a friend.as more than a friend, almost as a son.and Alaura.how could she have hurt me like this? I gave her all I had and this is how she repays me!?" Another wave of power built up from deep inside his gut to take form in a blast of light and terror from his fingertips as another mountiontop exploded in rock and snow some distance before him. "Nooo!" He screamed again and again as he allowed his anger and anguish to take over, forgetting, for awhile, everything else until the entire universe expanded and shrunk until it began and ended with the pain in his heart. 


	16. Painful Revelations

Neko had heard Piccolo scream and paused in her training, mid-stance, alarmed. In all her life she'd never heard such a sound coming from her father. It was the sound of someone in horrible agony. She could sense her father's pain from inside the spacious rooms with their high, high ceilings that had been given to her and wondered what could have caused him to react that way.  
  
She slipped out of the rooms, using one of the windows, and launched herself into the air, searching desperatly for any sign of her father. The day was wearing down and she could even see the outline of two perfectly matched cresent moons begin to show themselves, like half-closed eyes watching her, in the lavender sky. She saw the glow far off in the distance and watched as it became brighter and brighter and finally exploded in a blaze of energy towards a snow-capped mountain peak, demolishing that which nature created in an eruption of power so grand she had to avert her eyes.  
  
"Father...what are you doing?" She asked herself, as she hung, suspended in mid-air, her twin ponytails flying out like banners behind her. She knew she had to stop him before he hurt someone! Only, she didn't know how! She had known her father was powerful and very strong, she just never realized how much! After a few more explosions and a cry of pain so rendering that she could not stand by and watch any longer. In a burst of energy, Neko shoved herself forward into the growing evening and towards her father.  
  
Piccolo, panting and feeling the dampness run from his eyes and down his cheeks, cursed himself for being so stupid. For being such a fool as to give his heart to that cold-hearted bitch who just used him for her pleasure and then took up with the first muscle-bound human male who came along! He thought, bitterly, I hate her so much! He doubled up his fists and wished he had an enemy to take his frustration and pain out on, not just rocks and hills that feel no pain. It took him a few moments to realize that he wasn't alone any longer.  
  
"Father? Father, what is it?" Neko asked, floating before him, a concerned look in her dark eyes. Piccolo looked at her. Her eyes. So much like his. Her hair was his too. He growled at her in anger, not really meaning to hurt her, but not being able to stop himself, "Leave me be, Neko."  
  
"But, Father!" She cried, reaching out, lovingly, the way a daughter should when she saw her father in obvious distress, "What happened? Maybe I can help."  
  
"You can't help!" He cried, "Get away from me, Neko! You look too much like HIM.I can't stand the sight of you right now.!"  
  
Stunned, hurt and confused, Neko backed away, some part of her knew that her father was just lashing out at the first body to come along and that she shouldn't take anything he said personal.still, it hurt for the one she called father to speak to her as if he were disgusted with her. She tried again.  
  
"Father.I."  
  
Piccolo rounded on her, screaming into her face, making her fly backwards in fear, "I am not your father, Neko! I never was and never will be!!"  
  
"W-what?" She stuttered, shaking her head, "N-no! I know your not my real father.but you and Mom adopted me and."  
  
"No, only I adopted you," He said, "Your mother bore you."  
  
"I don't."  
  
"What's not to understand, Neko?" He said, cruelly, ignoring the tears coursing like rivelets down his face, "Your mother wanted him even then and I was stupid enough to believe her lies that all she wanted was a child of own! And as soon as I leave she takes up with him.I wonder how long she's been fucking him behind my back!"  
  
"Father.Piccolo.what are you talking about?" Neko asked, "Please, calm down and talk to me!"  
  
"I'm talking about your mother and Gohan, Neko!" Piccolo raged, annoyed that he would have to spell things out for her like a damn kindergarten teacher, "Gohan is your real father!"  
  
"Uncle Gohan?" She gasped, unable to believe, "I.I can't.why didn't anyone tell me this before? Why did you all keep it a secret? Did you think I would never find out?!"  
  
"Obviously not." He said, with biting sarcasm, "You can stay here and finish what you began with Larajin, but I have to return to Earth. Now."  
  
"Piccolo, I can't leave.I have to." She began but he had all ready turned about and was flying away, his white cape fluttering in the wake of the breeze he was making. She followed after as best she could, trying to reason with him, "You can't leave yet! In a few days we are to.I mean I am to."  
  
He stopped and turned around so that he was in front of her, his eyes looked dead, as if all happiness and love had been stripped from them. He said, deadly serious, "I am returning to Earth. Now. If you don't want to be stranded here until you can hitch a ride back to Earth with someone, I suggest you come with me. I have some pressing business with your mother."  
  
Neko, torn between her duty to avenge her friend's death and an even more urgent call, that of being with her family during this time of crisis, hung there in the sky, chewing her bottom lip and shaking her head, not certain what to do. Piccolo did not give her time to think about it. She realized, too late, that he'd all ready taken off once more towards the docking bays and sighing heavily, she turned towards the glimmering palace.  
  
"Well, Your Highness," She said in a half-whisper, "Looks like our battle will have to wait." She turned about and followed Piccolo towards their waiting ship. After all, she thought, Family should always come first.  
  
"Everything ready?" She asked, as she buckled herself in and Piccolo hit a few of the controls on the panel in front of them, they'd all ready stocked the ship with enough provisions to get them to Jalamir and back. He nodded and she felt the shift in gravity as the ship lifted up into space. Piccolo fired the thrusters and they moved forward as a great speed. He punched in the destination code and sat back, the only left to do now was wait. Wait and brood.  
  
He closed his eyes and tried to meditate but all he could see was Alaura's face, beckoning, beseeching and looking at him with those liquid blue eyes that always reminded him of still pools of tranquil water, looking at him as if her words had been true, that she really did love him and always would. How could he have believed such lies? How could he? He did not know.  
  
"I hate her, Neko." He spoke softly, almost too quiet for her to hear, Neko looked over and saw him with his head low, looking broken. She hated to see him this way, it scared her to see her normally powerful father, she still thought of him as her father, how could she do otherwise?, reduced to this. But, what could she.what could anyone do. She'd never been so ashamed of her mother in all her life. How could she hurt her father like this, like she didn't even care?! And Gohan.! How could he? How could he be her real father?! How could either one of them do this to Piccolo?! How could they?!  
  
Unbuckling her safty belt, she moved over to her father and bent down to wrap her arms about his large frame, trying to give what little comfort she could. He tensed up and Neko was afraid he was going to shove her away and reject her once more, but after a moment's hesitation he returned her embrace and bowed his face into the crook of her shoulder and neck.  
  
He mumbled against her skin and she did not catch most of what he said, only felt his tears wet where they feel against her, but he raised his head and looked into her eyes; "I hate her so much, Neko." She nodded, trying to understand, but not having been in love yet, she could not really know what heartbreak is, or how painful it could be. "I'm hurting so bad that I would gladly welcome death and even hell right now. I'm all mixed up inside, Neko.I hate her so much.but I love her too. I don't think I'll ever stop loving her. That's what makes me so much more the fool.If only I could just hate her.if only I could just hate her."  
  
Neko did not say anything, knowing, even at her young age of sixteen that sometimes, in some situations, words of care and concern are meaningless, lame, so she just continued to hold him and listened to him ramble on and on about how much he loved and hated her mother and again she felt torn, torn between being loyal to him, whom she loved dearly, or to the woman who bore her, who also loved her and had always been as good a mother to her as she knew how. She could not pick sides, Neko knew, but she could not stand to see either one in pain.  
  
She knew things were only going to get worse once they arrived home again. She dreaded the outcome with all her heart. She also knew that she would have to confront her real father with the truth and prayed she wasn't just adding salt to a festering wound. 


	17. Love's Foolish Game

"He still cares for you, you know." 18 was sitting beside Videl, trying to comfort the young woman as best she could, "Did you see how hurt he looked while you were screaming and throwing things at him?"  
  
Videl snorted and ran a hand through her short, dark hair, turning to 18 she asked; "Then why did he sleep with that woman.and.and not me? Why did he choose her to be with?"  
  
18 shrugged, her expression a mixture of sympathy and amusment, "Because he's a man, Videl. That's what they do. He saw a pretty face and a hot body and couldn't help himself."  
  
"I refuse to believe that, 18!" Videl cried, rubbing her eyes to stop the tears before they could fall, "We are more than just beasts who rut whenever the mood strikes us, we do have brains you know!"  
  
"True." She said, "Although, sometimes it's hard to tell."  
  
Videl was silent for a moment and 18 said, once more, "He still cares for you, Videl."  
  
"So, what if he does, 18?" Videl asked, her heart torn but her pride flaring up like a red flag, "Am I then soppose to just traipse right up to him and throw myself at him, let him get off scot-free after what he's done to me.?!"  
  
"I never said you should let him off scot-free, Videl," 18 said, serious, she could heard her daughter playing in the next room with Krillin and knew it would be time to get her dinner ready soon, "But, you must forgive him.eventually. In your heart, you know that you cannot stay apart from him."  
  
Videl was silent. But that silence spoke volumes. Smiling to herself, thinking that in time, everything would work out, 18 left the bedroom to take care of her own family and their needs. Little Marron greeted her by toddling over and wrapping her pudgy, jam-sticky hands around her leg and sitting down on 18's foot. Giggling, as her mother swung her leg up and tossed the child in the air and caught her, Marron's eyes were wide with delight.  
  
"Time to get you fed, kiddo." 18 said, softly, fixing the child's blonde ponytails.  
  
"Is Videl all right?" Krillin asked as he set the table, "Does she want to eat with us, do you think.?"  
  
"I think it's best if we just leave her be for now, Krillin." She said, looking up from fastening the tray onto Marron's highchair, "She needs some time to think."  
  
Meanwhile.  
  
He couldn't stand it a moment longer. "Damn it!" Gohan cursed, it was very unusual to hear him curse, even mildly, it was a testament to how distressed he was feeling at the moment, had been feeling over the past few days. He wanted to go back to Videl and get down on his hands and knees, he had to, and beg her to forgive him.  
  
But, he had something so silly that got in the way of matters of the heart called pride. His pride made him stay away, made him hold his tongue when he should have been on the phone trying desperately to reach her, to tell her that she was the only girl for him, forever, always. But, he couldn't. At least, then, he couldn't.  
  
Now, however, he stood on the doorstep to 18 and Krillin's house, knowing this was where Videl had been staying after 18 refused to allow her to leave and be alone in her current mental state, feeling like a heel in the too-tight white sports jacket and blue tie with matching slacks, a bouquet of crimson roses and baby's breath in his slighly trembling hands.  
  
"What the hell are you doing, Gohan?" He asked himself for the hundreth time as he flew over there, "She's not about to forgive you just like that.and a bunch of weeds is no way to make it up to her.probably send her into a fit of allergies, anyway.I should just go."  
  
He was just about to turn around and leave when the door burst open. Pausing in mid-turn, Gohan looked back and his heart stopped. Videl stood there. She was wearing that cute 'fight' shirt she was so fond of and had an odd look in her light eyes. She still looked angry, only.not as much.  
  
"Are those for me?" She asked, eyeing the flowers, He shoved them at her and she took them, buried her nose into the velvety red blooms and inhaled the heady scent, "I love roses." "Well, It's not much and I know how girls like flowers, so..." He stumbled over his words, uncertain of himself, uncertain of her, "Videl, I was wondering.I mean, hoping that we could.ummm."  
  
She looked up from her flowers. "What, Gohan? Pretend it never happened? Start from scratch? Give it another chance?"  
  
He looked sheepish at her, "Well.basically.yeah." He never realized how lame he sounded. He mental kicked himself. Hard.  
  
"What if it happens again?" She asked, her eyes narrowing to slits, "What if you run across another hot babe you just have to fuck, what then, Gohan? Do I just turn a blind eye to it? Just pretend nothing happened? What?"  
  
He did not know why he did this, but he kicked his pride in the balls for once and dropped down onto his knees, looking up into her face, praying that she wouldn't just curse at him and slam the door in his face. "Videl?" He began, serious, his eyes beseeching while his hands reached up to take her's, holding the flowers between them, "I can't make it up to you for what I did, but I do regret it, I can't change the past, I can't take back what I did, but I can do something about the future."  
  
She waited, stunned, and a second close to falling down on the front porch and exclaiming how much she loved him and of course she could forgive him of anything! But she merely waited, and listened.  
  
"I want to make a promise to you, Videl." He said, and she saw two small droplets of water forming in the corners of each of his dark eyes, "That, from this day forward, you will the only woman for me. Forever. I want to know if that would be all right with you, Videl? Because I you must know, I love you so much."  
  
She felt the tears slide down her cheeks even before he'd finished speaking and fell down to his level, embracing him, not caring about the roses being smashed between their bodies as he took her head in both hands, tenderly, and kissed her with love, passion and gratitude.  
  
"But if you ever do something like that again." She said, after breaking the kiss, "I'll do more than throw some plates at you!"  
  
"I all ready promised it wouldn't happen again, Videl!" He said, "I mean it. I gave you my word."  
  
She nodded, believing him. Finally, she took a good long look at what he was wearing and burst out laughing; "You.wore that for me?!"  
  
"Yeah.so what?" He looked hurt, and she realized that he'd been trying to impress her, not wanting to tread on his fragile male ego, she stopped laughing and said, simply, "White looks good on you, brings out your eyes." 


	18. Forgiveness

He was to be arriving home today, she thought, for the thousand-some times since she awoke from her fitful sleep in a bed that just felt too empty, He and Neko both. She stood at the window, watching the autumn leaves flutter like dead butterflies towards the ground, covering everything in a crisp orange-red banket.  
  
She pulled the ends of the dark red housecoat tighter about her narrow waist and felt her stomach growling. She hadn't been able to eat anything all day. Thoughts of fear, guilt and shame and yes.love.outweighed the need for nourishment. She ignored her stomach and stood silently, waiting, watching. Uncertain of what she was going to tell him when he returned.  
  
Damn Gohan for being so noble! She thought, but, after a heartbeat realized that she was glad he had confessed, the she would have done the same, was still going to the same. She knew she could not keep this from Piccolo, nor could she lie to him. She loved him too much, still. She only prayed he still felt the same about her. Even after what she had done.  
  
Neko and Piccolo left the docking bay and decided to just fly straight home. Piccolo kept his pace even with his daughter's and allowed her to keep up. She still wasn't as strong or fast as he. The flew on in silence for awhile, Neko looking down at the houses and streets that seemed like parts from a child's model-kit. Finally, when they were halfway there, Neko could tell by the trees becoming closer together so that they grew in great clumps instead of sporidically and the houses and roads became less and less, Piccolo cleared his throat and she looked over at him, waiting.  
  
"Neko," He said, "I'm sorry you didn't get to fight Queen Larajin."  
  
She shook her head, for some reason, upon the light of finding out who she really was and that her mother cheated on the only person she knew as a father, besting the Queen of Jalamir in a fight didn't seem all that important. She wondered where she'd been all her life and that if it was true that she was as shallow as she felt. There's more to life than fighting and vengence, Neko. She said to herself, aloud, she said; "Another day, Father."  
  
He nodded and they continued on in silence. Piccolo watched the girl, no, she was too grown-up now to be called a girl, he looked at the woman he had raised as his own and felt more than a little prideful at how she turned out. He realized that he wouldn't even be feeling this, wouldn't even be flying her with her if it hadn't been for Alaura. He gritted his teeth, not wanting to think about her, wanting to forget she ever exsisted.  
  
But he could not. He saw her every time he looked at Neko. Oh, Neko did not look a thing like her mother, but it was little things, things only a parent would notice about their children, that he saw, that reminded him. He also knew, even though he was dreading the confrontation ahead, that Alaura would never leave his heart, no matter what betrayal she committed against him. He wondered at that. Maybe it was true what they said; Love is blind. It's obviously stupid, as well, the silent namek thought as they came upon their house and began to lower themselves to the ground.  
  
Piccolo saw felt her before he saw her. She was standing in the livingroom window, dressed for bed, or perhaps she'd never bothered to get dressed that day, her hair hanging down in waves across her back and shoulders. He had almost forgotten how much he loved the sight of her hair, that seemed infused with sunlight in it's golden tresses. He felt a sudden urge to run his fingers through it, before stopping that train of thought and reminding himself that he was still angry with her.  
  
"Mom waited for us." Neko said, also seeing her mother in the window, "I'll go...explore the forest for a bit." She realized that Piccolo and her mother needed some time alone, with each other, without any distractions. Without waiting for an aknowlegement, she flew off through the trees. Piccolo had heard her words and felt her leave, but did not take his eyes from the woman in the window.  
  
He stood there, not bothering to come inside, arms folded across his massive chest, willing her to come to him. Sighing, Alaura moved away from the window and shadows fell where her image had been only moments before. He heard the door open and she stepped outside in bare feet, her blue eyes fearful and darting.  
  
He would have none of that. He stepped up to her, looked down into her face and held her chin between thumb and forefinger, forcing her to look into his eyes. At last he spoke, it wasn't what she'd expected; "You've hurt me, woman."  
  
She felt tears behind her eyes as he continued to hold her face still, uptilted towards his own green one. "You've betrayed me. How could you do this, Alaura?"  
  
"I..I.." She stumbled over her words, unable to find a reason, a viable one at least, "I was just stupid, Piccolo."  
  
He nodded, not bothering to coddle her. She had been stupid as far as he was concerned, why tell her something that wasn't true. He watched the tears slide down her cheeks and shook his head, he wasn't going to be allow her tears to sway him. No. He would not.  
  
"I thought I asked you a question, woman." He said, putting emphasis on the word 'woman' as though he had just taken a bite out of something rotten and did not like the taste in his mouth. He waited with the paitence of the gods as she continued to cry and try to speak, only to start weeping once more.  
  
"I don't know why!" She cried finally, jerking her head from his grasp and turning away, "It just happened! I'm sorry and I wish with all my heart that it never had, Piccolo!"  
  
"Alaura." He started, but she was all ready off on her own emotional playground, unable to hear him. She went on, through her tears and hiccups; "I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry for that! I never meant to.I swear this is true! I."  
  
"Alaura."  
  
"But, I can't change the past, Piccolo and I'm only a 'woman' as you said.I make mistakes.bad mistakes sometimes.but I still love you, Piccolo.if you say you hate me and never want to see me again.I.I won't be able to stop you from leaving."  
  
"Alaura, stop!" Piccolo cried, grabbing her shoulders and spinning her around to face him again, "Look at me. Stop.stop crying. Please."  
  
"Don't ask me to stop loving you." She hiccupped, looking down, "I won't be able to keep a promise like that."  
  
"I'm not asking you to do anything, Alaura." He titled her chin upwards once more, to look into her bloodshot eyes. She'd been crying a lot, he thought, feeling that he should be punishing her more, but his heart just wasn't in it, anymore. All those long hours during the journey home had served him well as he was left with nothing else to do but think. "I can't forgive you." She started to turn away, but he held her in place, went on; "But I still love you. I feel like a fool for saying this.but, I don't think I can ever not love you, Alaura."  
  
"A-are you saying.what I think your saying?" She asked, still fearful that he was going to start to yell or worse yes, hit her! Even though he'd never raised his hand in anger to her before.but then, she'd never cheated on him with his best friend before! "Piccolo?"  
  
"I'll be keeping a better eye on you from now on." He said, finally, "I don't trust you."  
  
"You have every reason to be distrustful." She started, but he ceased her from finishing her sentence by leaning down to capture her mouth beneath his own. "O-of.me."  
  
"Even though I love you, Alaura," He said, before kissing her again, also leaving her gasping, "You will have to repair my trust in you."  
  
She nodded, knowing that she would never, as long as she lived, ever make the same mistake twice. She had tasted forbidden fruit and frankly.she thought that term was overrated. "Let's begin by allowing me to greet you properly." She said, tugging him towards the house. She hadn't realized how much she had missed him until she was within his strong arms, feeling herself fit perfectly against him, breathing with him. She was thankful that he still loved her. Even if she still did not feel as if she deseved that love. But, she would try to make it up to him. She would try to win back his trust if it was the last thing she ever did. Alaura thought this as she pulled him downwards towards her, feeling his heart pound against her own upon the bed.  
  
The feeling lasted for all of three minutes. Alaura shook her head and shoved him away, seconds before she began to dry heave over the bed. She hadn't eaten anything all day, so there was nothing to come up but bile. She gasped and ran to the bathroom, this time, last night's dinner, half- digested, came up. She sat on the floor, her sweating head resting on the cold toliet seat, breathing deeply.  
  
"Oh, crap." She said, under her breath, mentally counting the days since she'd been with Gohan and realizing that more than a few weeks had passed, "No." 


End file.
